Salience & Synergy
by Rashaka
Summary: Lesson the first: fire comes from the breath.
1. Day 1

**Rating:** PG  
**Characters:** Iroh, Aang  
**Timeline:** somewhere between episode 13 and episode 18  
**Summary:** _Lesson the first: fire comes from the breath. _

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**Salience & Synergy**

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**Day 1**

There was a trap, an elegant trap—a trap with a distraction and sleeping insence and _oh, he'd never thought Zuko was this clever._

The last airbender woke up as a prisoner in a tiny room with one wall of bars and the swell of the ocean like a dream beneath him.


	2. Day 2

**Day 2**

Avatar Aang had tested his chains more times than he could count, but it made no noticable difference. He didn't even have enough chain to stand up, but he supposed he should be grateful: chained sitting was better than chained hanging. And as much as Aang wanted to beat Zuko to a pulp, details like this made being the prince's prisoner a little less horrible than being Zhao's.

There was also the fact that Zuko didn't like to waltz in and mock the genocide of everyone Aang loved. The Avatar felt he should be probably be grateful for that, too.

With a grunt he tugged on his chains again. The links clinked together, but refused to break. At least if it were rope he could've gnawed his way to freedom.

"There are many chains that bind you, young man, and chains don't break easily."

"Don't I know it," Aang sighed, looking up at the old firebender that followed Zuko everywhere. He could see the man clearly beyond the bars, old face shuttered but not grim.

"You must be lonely," the old man said, turning a key in the lock to Aang's cell. The door swung open easily, and he shuffled inside. He set the key near the edge of the bars, far past Aang's reach (or that of his airbending), and approached. He carried a single candle on a small candletray, unlit.

"Your name is Iroh, right?" Aang was social even in misery; it was his nature and he actually liked that about himself.

"Observant," Iroh nodded. "We've not been formally introduced. I am Zuko's uncle."

"I'm Aang."

"Excellent," the firebender replied, a sudden smile springing up so wide that Aang almost wanted to trust it. "Now, Aang, I'm going to have to ask you to be quiet for the next hour."

"Why?" Was this to be torture? Some unspeakable horror where he wouldn't even be given the right to cry out in pain?

Iroh chuckled, and, to Aang's gaping stare, lowered himself slowly to the floor. Cross-legged, he sat before his nephew's nemesis.

"I am going to meditate," he replied, and set the candle between them. With a swish of his hand it sparked to life.

"Oh," Aang said, and then he did not speak again for the duration of Iroh's visit.

Between them the wick's tiny flame bounced and danced.


	3. Day 3

**Day 3**

"Hello again, young man."

Iroh, a candle in each hand. Aang thought him the strangest firebender, no, the strangest person, he'd ever met. Well—mad people like Bumi aside.

"As you can see," Iroh chuckled, "I have brought two candles. One for me to meditate, and one for you."

"Does Zuko know you come to meditate with me in my cell?" Aang could have kicked himself; sometimes his curiosity spoke before he had time to think it over.

"My nephew," the old man replied with a twinkle in his eye, "pays far less attention to me than you seem to think. However, I don't imagine he'd care if he did know."

Aang could already guess, but felt like punishing himself by asking why.

Iroh's twinkle dimmed, but his gaze still glowed with something deeper than ordinary perception. "Because he knows your chains are kept safe with me. Though I take little pleasure in the imprisonment of children, I would strike you down long before ever letting you step out of this cell. Do not... linger on hope that I'll be your way to freedom."

The Avatar slumped, and tried to keep the shaking out of his shoulders. Another hope pointlessly dashed. He'd only been in a cell three days and already it was sucking something out of him. Sucking everything it could out of him, and without even a window to give back.

"Then... why are you here, Iroh?"

"Because," Iroh set the candles before them, one for Aang as promised. Fire rose from each like a sleepy butterfly. "You are the Avatar."


	4. Day 4

**Day 4**

In the moment of each afternoon when he'd first hear the soft, shuffling creak of the old general's boots on the steel floor of the brig, Aang would feel a of sensation overtake him, fill him, and then drift off into nothing, like a warm zephyr on a hot day.

As the man would sit down before him with his candles and his warm eyes, Aang would decide again (as he decided every day) that the feeling must be gratitude.

How odd, for the Avatar to feel gratitude to Ozai's Dragon of the West.


	5. Day 5

**Day 5**

Iroh didn't come this day, but Zuko did.

Aang felt it when ship had docked; the soft murmur of engines and flowing water was replaced with the dull lapping of waves against the hull. The sounds of humans and animals going about their lives echoed down through the ship from the world outside. Not the Fire Nation then: just a village, like any other. How many days before they reached Zuko's country? When they released him to drag him out, would he have a chance to escape? Would they drug him first?

His ponderings were interrupted by the sound of someone approaching down the corridoor, and Aang welcomed the reprieve. No one had told him that imprisonment would mean so much time to think. He'd always thought jail would be nothing but constant unhappiness; Aang _was_ unhappy, and frustrated, but since Zuko wasn't interested in torture or interrogation Aang was bored more than anything else.

The vistor's boots creaked softly like Iroh's did—there was a surety and gracefulness in both their steps—but these feet walked slightly faster, stepped just a fraction higher. The body they carried was lighter, the sound more delicate.

"Zuko," Aang said dully when the young warrior entered his cage. He wanted to glare, but couldn't find it in himself to do so. How could he blame Zuko for ceding to his father's wishes? Well, he did blame him some... but a small piece of Aang liked Zuko, really _liked_ him, and Aang couldn't hold a grudge against someone he liked. What he could do was feel pity for them both, and pray for Zuko to make a useful mistake.

"Avatar," the prince replied, bending at the knees to look his prisoner in the eye. His gaze flickered over Aang's face, down to his chained limbs and back up. "I see you're being fed properly."

"Yes," Aang agreed. To Zuko's unspoken question, "As ordered, your men haven't come near me."

"Good." _Too bad,_ Aang thought. He'd take a kick in the sides if it could get him the keys—but then maybe Zuko knew that.

"Are you going to check on me often?"

"Occasionally," Zuko replied, rising to his full height again. He turned to leave, but stopped at the Avatar's voice.

"Zuko." The prince looked over his shoulder. "What happened to Katara and Sokka?"

Zuko turned halfway around, giving the question a surprising show of respect. "I left them asleep in the cave...out of sight."

Aang sagged against the wall in relief. "Thank you." Prince Zuko nodded and left, boots creaking on steel once more. Aang smothered the urge to call him back one more time and ask him, _Are you sorry? Do you know what this will do to the world? Do you feel guilty at all?_

Aang, in his heart, was afraid that Zuko might answer.


End file.
